Seth Rollins has spoken out about the moment he was rushed by a so-called WWE fan during a live broadcast of Monday Night Raw.
Fans were left flabbergasted during the live 22 November episode of Monday Night Raw as Seth Rollins, who’d just left Finn Balor laying in the ring, was ambushed by an apparent fan. Though the fan caught Rollins by surprise, ‘The Visionary’ soon gained control of the situation, aided by WWE officials who removed the man from the equation.
A WWE-issued statement indicated that the 24-year-old man in question had been turned over to the New York Police Department. Seth Rollins appeared to be in good spirits following the incident, remaining in character moments after the incident had been dealt with.
Discussing the moment in a new interview with Ariel Helwani, Rollins explained how unexpected the incident was, with the assailant coming from out of nowhere:
“It was so fast, though, that I didn’t really have any time to process it until, like, I only remember, the only thought I remember having is when he was on top of me. And kind of they were, I mean, they were already pulling him away. But he had a handful of my hair, and I was just trying to kind of punt him off me with whatever foot I had underneath it to get to, maybe my instinct was to grab his head, just to control his head and I have no jujitsu training at all.
So whether I did anything right or wrong is completely instinctive. But yeah, my instinct was just as soon as I knew that someone was upon me, just to control his head as best I could. Because if he couldn’t posture up, then he probably wasn’t going to get anything done. Hoping that he didn’t have any weaponry in his hands, which thankfully he did not so yeah, it just was like, it happens so fast. He was on me quickly, he is a little bowling ball of a man.
And I just remember thinking, ‘What is happening when he’s underneath me and then get off me.’ And then you know, ‘Who is this person?’ I gotta look at him. And then it was like, ‘Alright, be done with it.’ You know, they’ve got it under control. So let’s just move along.”
Seth Rollins continued, explaining how initially he thought the man was a crew member moving wires out the way:
“But yeah, man, it was so weird, because the way I was, you know, I’m leaving the ring. I just think I had had a match with Finn Balor and I had hit him with an extra Stomp. And, you know, there was a bit of heat. So they were booing and whatever. And I’m walking away. And I remember just turning to our cameraman Stu, who’s usually, he’s the guy on the aisle there and he’s falling and he follows me so when I turn he turns so you know, I turn to face and he’s got my shot with the ring in the background.
And there’s always people when they’ve got that shot, there’s always people running behind whether they’re setting up pyro or you know, just moving wires or whatever they’re doing, so this guy just…I didn’t even think twice that he wasn’t just someone working because he just comes running around the corner out of the darkness and then before I even have time to react, he’s by Stu and just on me, it happened like in the blink of an eye it felt like when you watch it, obviously like fancams or something, you can [be] like, ‘Oh there he is running at Seth, why doesn’t Seth see him, right?'”
Wrapping up, Seth expressed his gratitude for having an abundance of security in close vicinity to the incident:
“But yeah, dude, I was just thankful that security was there. I was thankful that he wasn’t armed in any way that could have gone very badly. And then I, in the aftermath, I just felt bad for him. You know, when I kind of saw online what his situation was and he had been catfished out of some money and you know, his mental capacity wasn’t great.
I just felt bad, I felt bad that there wasn’t anybody in his life that could kind of help him out and so it was an unfortunate situation that I think was handled as best as it could all the way around and then honestly, coming out later with it I didn’t even think twice about it. Yeah, it [fear of it happening again] was there, was just like in some ways, like, ‘No way it’s going to happen again.’ So I had, I had the extra safety net there that I was like, [If] it happens again, somebody’s getting fired.’
So I felt pretty confident that having to go back out there, we weren’t going to have any repeat offenders. And so, yeah, just making light of the situation. And the cool thing about this character is like, he can really get away with anything, right? Now he can do anything you want to do. And so that’s one of those things where I can, I can poke fun at myself or poke fun at the situation. Even if it is completely dangerous and scary. It’s just this, this guy can do that.”
The fan attack on Seth Rollins wasn’t the first time such an incident has occurred in wrestling. A similar instance had went down in All Elite Wrestling just months prior, as a fan attempted to rush the ring during Chris Jericho’s Judas singalong on Dynamite. Jericho, furious at the situation, took a swing at the offending invader while he was taken away.
If you use any quotes from this transcription, please credit Ariel Helwani Meets… on BT Sport and link back to this article with a H/T to Inside The Ropes.